Night Magic Part 16

McClain said nothing, just sat in the chair across the general's desk and waited. Ramsey had not been asking his permission to give the microfilm to Captain Spencer; he had merely been telling him that he intended to do so. He had handed the ball off to Ramsey now; it was up to Ramsey to run with it.

When Captain Spencer entered after a brief knock, McClain had known instantly why this was the general's a.s.sistant. Captain Spencer was spit-and-polish from the jaunty hat he carried under one arm to the shine on his shoes. Fortyish, with a balding head and a stocky but compact build, Captain Spencer was the quintessential marine.

"Davey, I want this microfilm looked at so we can see what's what with it. Also, check it for prints and anything else that might help us identify where it's come from. And do it yourself, Davey. It's top-secret, and I don't want anyone else outside the three of us in this room to have the slightest notion that the thing even exists. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." Captain Spencer saluted, took the microfilm from the general and tucked it carefully into his breast pocket.

"Be as quick as you can, Davey."

"Yes, sir." The captain saluted and turned to leave. When he was nearly at the door, the general stopped him.

"Oh, and send someone over to the PX to get some Tender Vittles, would you? This kitty looks like he's hungry."

Captain Spencer didn't blink an eye, just saluted and was on his way.

When he was gone, Ramsey set Puff on the desk and stood up. Puff swished his tail and fixed baleful eyes on McClain. McClain did his best to ignore the smug looking cat, succeeding admirably except for the sneezing he couldn't control as he rose to his feet along with the general.

"I imagine it will take Captain Spencer an hour or so. I will have someone show you to a room where you can shower and rest. A meal will be provided as well."

"Yes, sir." The military training fell over his shoulders like a cloak. Like riding a bicycle, McClain thought with wry amus.e.m.e.nt. He even found himself saluting as the general left the room, Puff tucked securely under one arm.

The microfilm provided all that Yuropov had promised it would: names, dates, places of operations compromised by Bigfoot; agency operatives revealed; codes mysteriously breached.

"Pretty d.a.m.ning," Ramsey said two hours later as he stared through the scratchy, glaring field of the microfilm lens. "Not a doubt that the agency's got a leak somewhere. The question is where? Who?"

"Yuropov said that Bigfoot was at the highest level, general. It's clear from the scope of information here that that's true."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but if what Mr. McClain has told us about Bigfoot checks out, then it stands to reason that his information about a plot against the secretary of state is also legitimate. Shouldn't we get on the horn and warn Washington?" Captain Spencer's words were urgent.

"I've already done so," General Ramsey replied, his eyes still on the microfilm. "Went right through the head of the Joint Chiefs. Nick Segram and I were at Annapolis together. He'll get the word to the secretary of state. Privately. No one else is to know."

"That doesn't mean that the hit won't still go down." All the extra security precautions in the world were little protection against a man with a high-powered rifle, as McClain well knew. Providing, of course, that that man was prepared to sacrifice his own life for the good of the Cause. And they couldn't a.s.sume that whoever was charged with hitting the secretary of state wasn't prepared to do just that.

"No, I realize that. But warning the secretary himself was the obligatory first step. From what you tell us, McClain, we can't even trust our own Central Intelligence Agency with this. Which means that the little group of people who have proven they can be trusted- you, me, Captain Spencer here, and Nick Segram- are going to have to come up with a solution outside the usual intelligence channels. I have a call in to the White House. I expect to bring the president in on this. I am a.s.suming we can trust him."

From the sudden jocularity in Ramsey's tone, McClain recognized that this was an attempt at a joke. He smiled halfheartedly. The little band of freedom fighters Ramsey had named sounded pitifully small when he considered that they were pitted against the vast resources of the KGB. But looking at old Wild Bill and Davey Spencer, McClain decided that they'd do. Semper Fidelis. To their backbones. Always faithful. As was he, whether he wanted to be or not. McClain grimaced to himself. Old marines never died. They just grunted away in different mudholes.

"In addition to the safety of the secretary of state, we must also give the highest priority to identifying Bigfoot. I would like to run this information through Big Floyd, sir. If I can access it," Captain Spencer said to General Ramsey.

"My plan exactly," McClain said, surprised into admiration. There was more to this spit-and-polish captain than appeared on the surface, apparently. Big Floyd was a widely known secret, but it was still a secret and not one that the average marine officer should be aware of. He regarded Spencer with some respect. "And I think I can get in, with the help of your modems."

"And how do you intend to do that, I wonder?" General Ramsey asked with a fleeting grin. "No, don't tell me. I don't want to know what lawless act you're planning. You are in a peck of trouble already, McClain. Everyone from the police departments of fifty states to the FBI to the National Guard to the CIA to the KGB wants a piece of your a.s.s for everything from car theft to ma.s.s murder. Are you going to add breaking and entering a computer to the list?"

"You only live once, sir."

Ramsey laughed and agreed. McClain worked with Davey Spencer all through the night trying out different combinations of access codes. Finally they broke in. An hour later they had what they wanted. The list of individuals who had had access to every piece of information that Bigfoot had pa.s.sed on was narrowed down to five: Tim Hammersmith, who was dead and thus effectively eliminated; Eugene Matlock, head of Counterintelligence; Oliver Simonis, deputy director of the agency itself; Brandt Rowe, head of the Consular Operations within the agency; and Michael Ball, retired director of the CIA, who nevertheless still received weekly briefings on everything in which the agency was involved. And of course, as McClain sourly observed, he could add to that the entire Senate Intelligence Committee and the president and his key aides. Not more than two dozen or so, although as Spencer pointed out the five names selected specifically by Big Floyd were the most likely candidates.

"I was going to take this to Michael Ball," McClain said, frowning over the list.

"Good thing we brought you down, then," Spencer said cheerily, punching one last command into the enormous computer which ran the length of the room. At that early hour of the morning Camp Lejeune's computer center was almost deserted. General Ramsey had ordered everyone out and posted a guard outside the door as McClain and Spencer worked. When summoned at last, after the two finally hit paydirt, General Ramsey was impressed with the speed and efficiency with which the computer spewed out information. He was a secretary and typewriter man himself, he said. McClain barely managed a grimace at the joke. He was dead on his feet.

Finally it had been agreed that things must go forward just as they would have if McClain had not convinced General Ramsey of the truth of what was happening. If the KGB got wind that their plot was coming unglued they would bury Bigfoot so deep that it would take years to find him. The plan was to keep up the pretense that everyone accepted wholeheartedly the story that McClain had gone off his rocker. So he was to leave Camp Lejeune in the morning; General Ramsey had already been notified that an escort of agents was arriving to conduct the prisoner back to Langley. McClain would be a.s.sisted to escape before he got there- Ramsey was working out the details of that with Nick Segram- and then he would be brought back to Camp Lejeune in the greatest secrecy where he would a.s.sist in the identification of Bigfoot. Rostov, meanwhile, would be scouring the country for McClain, but Bigfoot would have no idea that McClain was anything more than a hunted fugitive and thus would consider himself safe. And therefore would be far easier to expose.

But it hadn't worked out that way. McClain shook his head wryly at his own naivete at imagining it would. Wishful thinking, he supposed. He'd done a h.e.l.l of an acting job with Knebel and Thompson if he did say so himself, playing the reluctant prisoner desperate to convince a skeptical audience of the truth of what he said. They would report everything to their superiors, he knew. h.e.l.l, there had probably been a tape recorder in the car. All so Bigfoot wouldn't get suspicious. And he'd been counting on that escape.

But Bigfoot apparently had an ear in Camp Lejeune as well. McClain told himself that he should have suspected it, should have known that the KGB wouldn't be shaken off so easily. That Rostov might take him from his escort before Ramsey's men could liberate him had occurred to n.o.body. The only comfort was that the Soviets apparently didn't know that he had pa.s.sed the microfilm on to Ramsey. If they had, he and Clara would already be dead. Even Rostov, s.a.d.i.s.t that he was, would not go through this charade if he already knew that McClain could not give him what he wanted.

A rattle sounded outside the trailer's garage-type door. Speak of the devil, McClain thought, tensing as he was brought back to the present with a start. But apparently one of the thugs who had stayed with the truck just wanted to make sure that the door was still securely locked. If Rostov were back he would have burst in, murderously angry at having failed to find Puff. But the door stayed closed.

When Rostov returned, they would have just one chance to take the b.a.s.t.a.r.d off guard, and a slim one at that. And it was all they would have. McClain knew suddenly that he wanted it to work. Wanted it with a desperation he hadn't felt about anything in years. And the reason he wanted it to work so badly was for Clara far more than himself. He had been playing Russian roulette with death for years. Dying wasn't anything he courted, but it came with the territory. But Clara- he couldn't stand watching Clara suffer. He thought of how Rostov had had her finger broken, of how he'd burned her, of how he'd humiliated and terrorized her, and he felt a fierce anger burn in his gut. Rostov would pay for that.

Talking to Clara earlier had been a mistake. It had opened him up to emotions he'd kept buried for four years, buried deep beneath carefully built layers of indifference. Natalia's face swam in his mind's eye. He didn't want to remember Natalia, whose dark hair and pretty smiles had blinded him to a murderous b.i.t.c.h. Deliberately he banished her image. Gloria's face immediately rose to replace it. He hadn't loved Gloria, just l.u.s.ted after her body, but he had never meant to get her killed. But he had thought she was safe enough. When he had started seeing her he had been a desk jockey, for G.o.d's sake. He'd had no idea that he would get mixed up in something that would cost her her life. Always a.s.suming Rostov was telling the truth about that, of course. The KGB was a past master at playing head games.

Now there was Clara, sleeping warmly at his side. She trusted him, more fool she. He had an idea she still thought he could get her out of this in one piece. She had more confidence in him than he did in himself. But he would do his d.a.m.nedest to succeed- for her sake.

d.a.m.n the woman, she appealed to him! He liked everything about her, from her sa.s.sy mouth to her gentle blue eyes to her Southern belle manner to her s.e.xy body. He liked the way she smiled, her fierce loyalty to her cat, the way she said Oh my G.o.d like it was the worst epithet ever invented when she thought she was in trouble. He liked her femininity and her courage under fire. In a pinch, she had never once let him down. He'd discovered that there was an awful lot of steel in this particular magnolia.

And he liked making love to her. In fact, he loved making love to her. And that worried him, now that he thought about it. His taste usually ran to what his mother would call fast women. And Clara was far from that. Clara was a lady. At least until he got her in the sack. Then she was as hot as any female he'd had. And she got him hot, too. Randy as a ram. h.o.r.n.y as a goat. In bed, that lady was no lady. His mind boggled at the saying that brought to mind. And there was another one, too. One about the ideal wife being a lady in the parlor and a wh.o.r.e in the bedroom. In that respect, Clara would certainly make a h.e.l.l of a wife.

The very notion of himself with a wife appalled him. All right, he liked Clara. More than liked her if he was honest. And she turned him on. But that was a far cry from marriage. Marriage wasn't in his game plan. Since Natalia's betrayal, he'd never met a woman he could imagine himself living with for the rest of his life. He'd decided that he just wasn't cut out for marriage, for a normal family life. He had to live free.

But she felt good nestling against him, her body soft and trusting. He felt good holding her. And she'd been very sweet when he'd confessed to her the darkest secret of his life, which was something he'd never talked about to anyone but the shrinks at the hospital. Only G.o.d never makes a mistake, she'd said. He hadn't answered her then. Now the words came back to lodge in his mind. Was it possible, that after all these years, he could let the dead go? Write it all off as exactly what it had been, a misjudgment on his part, a tragic mistake?

Maybe, just maybe, if he got out of this alive, he'd think about that some more. Right now there didn't seem much point in forgiving himself. It was far more important to figure out a plan that would give them at least a chance of getting out of this mess alive. He was no Superman; h.e.l.l, he wasn't even close. He'd have to outmaneuver five KGB agents armed with Kalashnikov rifles, Skorpion machine pistols, and G.o.d only knew what else, all in the confines of a ten-by-thirty-foot trailer. Completely impossible. The odds were maybe five billion to one against success. If he were smart he'd probably give up the fight right now, strangle Clara in her sleep to save her from what Rostov and his apes would do to her when they returned, and then hang himself from that hook in the ceiling. Death wasn't so horrible, he knew. It was the dying that was the bad part.

Clara stirred beside him. He looked down at her, at her lovely face flushed with sleep, her tousled blonde hair, her voluptuous body that turned him on even now, just looking at it. His eyes touched on the small circular burn beneath her ear and then traveled to the ridiculous bandage on her hand. He remembered how sick and helpless and at the same time blindingly furious he'd felt when they'd hurt her and she'd cried...

A rush of protectiveness so strong that it amazed him flooded his veins. She did not deserve this. He had gotten her into this mess and it was up to him to rescue her- if he could. Easing his shoulder out from under her head, McClain shook his head at himself. Lost cause or not, he would put everything he had into saving her life.

Who had ever said he was smart?

XX.

"Clara. Wake up!"

The urgency of the whisper penetrated her warm, cozy fog of sleep. Clara surfaced reluctantly. For some reason she wasn't yet aware of, her mind did not want to rouse itself.

"Clara!"

The voice that was whispering in her ear was male, and familiar. Its deep rasp sent an antic.i.p.atory tingle down her nerve endings. She a.s.sociated pleasure with that voice... Her eyes blinked open to find brilliant green eyes not more than six inches away. Jack. Of course, Jack. She smiled with sleepy invitation into those eyes, noticing with purely female satisfaction how they darkened to emerald. Of its own accord, her hand rose to touch his stubbled cheek. Not much more than twelve hours after he had shaved, he already had a thick growth of black bristles covering his cheeks and jaw. Stroking lightly over the sandpaper roughness, Clara decided that the Miami Vice look became him. It enhanced the rugged, vibrant maleness that was as much a part of him as the green eyes.

"What are you trying to do, turn me on?" He caught her hand as it dreamily stroked his face and carried it to his mouth. His lips were warm on her palm; Clara felt the sweep of his tongue against her skin and shivered. Never had she dreamed that a man's slightest touch could do that to her. Never had she dreamed that her whole body could be set to trembling by one long, s.e.xy look out of a pair of male eyes.

"Kiss me, Jack." Her eyes closed as her lips yearned upwards. She felt heat shoot down to her toes as he obliged, his mouth hot and hard on hers. Then his mouth was withdrawn, and at the same time she felt the sting of a hard slap on her silk covered bottom. Yelping, she started into a sitting position, rubbing the injured portion of her anatomy as she glared at him.

"Get up, sleepyhead. We've got things to do." He was standing over her now, fully dressed even to his sneakers, his fists balled on his hips. Clara looked around, suddenly remembering where they were and what had happened. Had Rostov returned? Of course not. Jack would not be standing there like that if he had.

"Is Rostov back?" The words were wrenched out of her. Maybe he was outside, even now on his way in. Maybe that was why Jack had awakened her.

"Not yet. But we have to get ready for when he does get here. We shouldn't have long to wait."

"Oh my G.o.d." Clara moaned. She had been so comfortably asleep, lulled by Jack's solid warmth and rea.s.suring presence, made pleasantly tipsy by the beer. Now she had been dragged awake to face an aching hand, a throbbing burn, a growing sense of embarra.s.sment as she remembered just how she had come to be cuddling so intimately with Jack- good Lord, had she practically raped the man?- and overriding all, the realization that nothing had changed: their lives were still in the deadliest peril.

"Come on, baby, get dressed. I have a plan." Jack reached down and grabbed her good hand. Clara allowed herself to be hauled upright.

"What time is it?"

Jack shook his head. The goons had smashed his watch when they searched him, hoping, she supposed, that the microfilm might be hidden inside it.

"I don't know. But Rostov's been gone about six hours. Which means that it should be about two A.M."

Unspoken between them was the thought that he shouldn't be gone much longer. Clara felt her chest tighten as she picked up her jeans. With her injured finger dressing was awkward, but she managed to struggle into the jeans and boat shoes that Jack had placed beside their makeshift bed. Sliding into one shoe and hopping sideways to put the other on her foot, she discovered Jack's eyes on her. From the expression on his face, he had been watching her dress.

"Nice a.s.s," he said with an exaggerated leer. Clara got her foot in her shoe at last and straightened, eyeing him. He was grinning a little, waiting for her reaction. So he thought he'd put her out of countenance with chauvinistic remarks, did he? She walked over to him, patted the tight little masculine rear she really did admire tremendously, and said gravely, "You too."

He looked so surprised that she had to grin. He grinned back at her, leaned over to kiss her, quick and hard, then straightened.

"Remind me to do something about that smart mouth of yours when we get out of this mess," he said, and then he was all business. As Clara listened to his plan her eyes widened. She couldn't do what he asked- could she?

"Just don't forget how to operate the d.a.m.ned thing. And for G.o.d's sake, don't shoot me."

Clara eyed her weapon with strong misgivings. She was supposed to shoot Rostov with that? Her heart sank at the very idea. But she had to admit, when pressed by Jack, that she couldn't come up with a better plan. So, heart pounding, she sat back down on the floor of the trailer, furniture pad over her lap to conceal the weapon, a roll of furniture pads next to her in the hope that, for a moment anyway, Rostov might mistake them for Jack. The only thing in their favor was that Rostov would suppose them still to be handcuffed, and the a.s.sault Jack had in mind would take him totally by surprise. The details of it even surprised her, and she was rapidly learning the way his mind worked.

Once in position all there was to do was wait. Clara felt herself get more and more frightened, too frightened even to talk. If Jack's plan didn't succeed, the consequences were too terrifying to contemplate. Rostov would be livid, ripe for vengeance. At the thought of what he could do to her Clara felt the familiar nausea start to churn in her stomach. Then she thought of what he had done to her previously. And she realized that whatever happened, unless this plan worked, she would die. And what death could Rostov dream up in vengeance for their attack on him that would be more horrifying than being burned to death by a rubber tire?

Finally, icy calm descended. Her shattered nerves flatly refused to feel. She would do what she had to do, just as Jack would do what he had to do. Both their roles were vital to the operation's success. Operation. The word stuck in the track of her mind and was repeated. She was even starting to think like Jack.

"Clara, get ready." The soft warning was hissed from where Jack was perched high up on the steel door guides. He gave her a quick thumbs up sign.

Clara knew that the showdown was about to begin. The flickering light from the bulb cast eerie shadows on the metal walls. A tremendous tension charged the air.

The click of the door being unlocked shot along her nerve endings like electricity. She was more alert than she had ever been in her life, but still the icy calm held. She would do her part. Her life as well as Jack's was on the line.

The door rumbled open. Rostov heaved himself up, rifle in hand, silhouetted against the deep gray of, the moonlit night outside as he straightened, looking around for his prisoners.

"You play a game with me, Dragon." His icy blue eyes found Clara huddled beneath the furniture pad as he spoke. They narrowed. Orlov came up behind him, still on the ground outside, head and upper trunk shadowy but visible as he laid his hand on the floor of the van to heave himself inside.

Overhead there was a crash as McClain's feet slammed into the top of the door. The heavy metal door shot for home with a furious rumble. Orlov jumped back, cursing in Russian as the door clanged shut. Rostov whirled, looking up and shouldering his rifle at the same time. Clara came up off the floor with the fire extinguisher in her hand. She ran toward Rostov, squeezing the lever. Rostov heard her footsteps rushing across the floor and started to swing back around, rifle zeroing in on Clara. Overhead, McClain shouted. Rostov automatically flinched and looked up. White foam spewed over his face. McClain dropped from above, landing square on the Soviet's back. The two went down in a flurry of blows and curses. The rifle went skittering across the metal floor, throwing up a shower of sparks as it went.

Clara scrambled after it. The sounds of a furious fight spurred her on. It was impossible to know who was doing what to whom with her back turned, but Clara knew that it would be a fight to the death. She had to help Jack- and herself. All her life she had thought of herself as a coward; well, here was the true test.

The sounds of blows accompanied by grunts and groans punctuated her desperate search for the rifle. Where had the d.a.m.ned thing gone? A furious banging on the door from the goons outside told her that Jack's plan to lock the door by snapping a handcuff through one of the holes on the guide after kicking the door closed had worked. Orlov and Malik and the others could not get in- for the moment.

She found the rifle at last, its barrel protruding from beneath the generator. Fishing it out, she lifted it, surprised at its weight and the cold solidity of it in her hand, and turned. The men were flopping around on the floor like landed fish. Rostov had Jack in a headlock; Jack was punching Rostov's kidneys. Blood spattered both distorted faces. Their expressions were murderous. Each was out to kill. She had to do something; there was no one else. Jack might win or he might not. It would be foolish to take that chance. Lifting the rifle to her shoulder, pointing its ugly black mouth at the twisting, grunting, gouging pair on the floor, she walked forward until she was only a few feet away. Then she stopped. It occurred to her that Rostov might seize the chance to try to grab the rifle away from her, and that would be disastrous. For a moment she stood irresolute. What should she do? They paid her not the least attention, fighting in deadly earnest and a frightening silence punctuated only by the sound of blows and pained grunts. Rostov once again got Jack in a headlock.

For a split second Clara considered firing the rifle. It would give her tremendous pleasure to shoot Rostov pointblank in the head. But she wasn't sure exactly how to fire it, and even she knew better than to shoot off a gun in a metal enclosure. The ricochet could very easily kill any one or all of them. Besides, she had never fired a gun in her life. As entwined as Jack and Rostov were, there was every possibility she might shoot the wrong man.

There was, it seemed, only one thing to do. Taking a deep breath, Clara lowered the rifle, grasped it firmly with both hands around the barrel, lifted it high overhead and brought the heavy metal b.u.t.t crashing down onto Rostov's blond head.

XXI.

"Moy tvoyou mat!" Rostov was rasping out a stream of Russian interspersed with English curses. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Son of a b.i.t.c.h! b.i.t.c.h!"

"Sticks and stones, comrade," Jack taunted with a grim smile. Clara, sitting on the pile of mattresses, could hardly believe that the plan had worked. So far.

Rostov was hanging from the ceiling, his feet not quite touching the floor, the muscles in his arms bulging as they bore his weight. Handcuffs pa.s.sed over the middle of the steel door tracks overhead were locked onto each wrist. He was naked. Clara stared at his gently twisting body with detached interest. It was pale, lean, well-defined if not as muscular as Jack's, and sprinkled with reddish hair. Not unattractive as male bodies went, she supposed, then wondered at herself. Five days before she would have been embarra.s.sed at seeing a naked man. But there she sat, prepared to witness the very intimate kind of torture that Jack had devised with grim satisfaction.

Jack was delicately wrapping a piece of thin wire around Rostov's testes. The wire was connected to the generator. Jack would ask Rostov questions, and if the answers weren't satisfactory would crank the generator. Sooner or later the resulting jolts of electricity traveling through Rostov's genitals would be enough to make him tell them anything they wanted to know, Jack a.s.sured her. Clara didn't ask how he had come by the knowledge. She was only glad that Rostov had not thought to use such a method on her.

They were safe inside the trailer for the moment. The banging at the door and sides had stopped; it was apparent that the goons couldn't get in. Rostov was completely at their mercy, and as Jack had said, they weren't likely to get a better chance to find out what Rostov knew. Once they made a break for it anything could happen. The goons, knowing that they were trapped in the trailer, were likely to try to wait them out. For a while, anyway.

Rostov kicked at Jack's head as he finished wrapping the wire. Jack ducked, catching the blow on the top of his head, then straightened, unhurt.

"You don't have much in the way of brains, do you, comrade?" he asked. Then, without warning, he slugged Rostov hard in the stomach. The Russian screamed, writhing like a worm on a hook.

"That was for Hammersmith," Jack said. Rostov heaved and gasped, trying to catch his breath. Jack waited until he almost succeeded, then without warning slugged him hard in the stomach again. Rostov gagged, flopping about like a hooked fish.

"That was for Gloria."

Rostov's breath wheezed and rasped in his throat. His face was blue. He sounded and looked like he was dying. Jack smiled. Then he slugged Rostov as hard as he could in the groin.

"And that," Jack said, "was for Clara."

Then he turned his back and walked over to the generator while Rostov was violently sick all over the floor. Jack waited patiently for the spasm to pa.s.s.

"Now, comrade, you will tell us what you know about plans to a.s.sa.s.sinate the secretary of state."

"V'nebrachnee! Capitalist idiot of a pig! Have you forgotten that four of my men are right outside this trailer at this moment? Undoubtedly they have sent for backups. You can never get away. They will storm this truck at any minute. You will be killed, or better yet, not killed. I will make you pay with a thousand screams for this."

"That reminds me," Jack said, and picked up the walkie-talkie that Rostov had been carrying when he entered. "You will tell your goons that they are to do nothing- nothing- without orders from you. Do you understand? Tell them we are negotiating. Clara, hold this thing up to his month. Keep the b.u.t.ton depressed so they can hear him. When I tell you."

"If you think I will..." Rostov said with contempt, his pale blue eyes icy with rage as Clara scrambled up to do Jack's bidding. She had to stretch to bring the transmitter level with Rostov's mouth, suspended as he was, and took care to stay clear of his feet. She was surprised at the eagerness she felt to make him pay for what he had done to her.

"Oh, I think you will," Jack said. He picked up the pistol that Rostov had been wearing in a shoulder holster under his clothes and pointed it at Rostov's knee. "If you don't, I'll blow your kneecap off."

Rostov spewed another stream of mixed Russian and English invectives, which stopped abruptly when Jack c.o.c.ked the pistol. Glaring malevolently at Jack, he began to speak rapidly into the transmitter.

"In English, so we don't have any mix-ups," Jack directed smoothly. "Clara, now press the b.u.t.ton."

Clara pressed the b.u.t.ton so that Rostov could transmit. Furiously, Rostov did as he was told. When Clara lowered the transmitter, his ice cold eyes met hers.

"I will very much enjoy making you pay for this, Miss Winston," Rostov promised softly. Clara felt a frisson of fear shoot down her spine, but tried not to let it show. After all, she and Jack had the upper hand- for now, at least.

"Last chance, Rostov." Jack moved back beside the generator. Clara sat on the moving pads. Both watched the sweating, naked man suspended from the ceiling, but with very different expressions.

"Go to h.e.l.l!"

Jack turned the crank. Current zinged along the circuit of wires. Rostov screamed. Clara flinched, wincing. She knew that Rostov deserved everything Jack did to him and more, but she still hated to hear the sounds of a human being in pain. Even Rostov. Who was not, in her opinion, qualified for the designation of human.